18.01.2009

World youth qualifiers for Jenner and Birkenhead at AYOF

Day two of the AYOF field competition saw athletes from both New Zealand and Australia outshine their rivals in what were perfect conditions for throwing events at Sydney Olympic Park Athletics Centre.

In the men’s shot put, Victorian Damien Birkenhead (pictured) threw some outstanding throws breaking the AYOF record and qualifying for the World Youth Championships to be held in Italy in July.

The gentle giant was very pleased with his best effort of 19.22m as it was a big personal best for him.

Australian Kurt Jenner, lived up to the pre-meet hype in the long jump with a world youth qualifier and a barrier breaking 7m leap.
 
Jenner’s first three rounds were very solid, with leaps of 6.88m, 6.86m and 6.76m, just ahead of Hiabing Huang of China on 6.82m.
 
“My leaps were not the best, I expected better. But after the third round, I treated it like a new competition and psyched myself up.”
 
It worked. On his fourth jump, Jenner leap out to 7.12m with a legal wind, a big personal best, his first ever 7m leap and a World Youth qualifier.
 
“As soon as I jumped I knew it was big. The feeling was overwhelming.”
 
In a nice touch, Jenner, a Westfield Sports High student, was presented with his medal by Beijing Olympian, AYOF Ambassador and former Westfield student, Dani Samuels.

The women’s high jump was a terrific competition with a number of girls producing tremendous qualifying performances.
 
Melbourne’s Denise Snyder took the competition lead at 1.73m with a first up clearance, but unfortunately her competition would end at the next height - 1.76m.
 
Shani Sleeman remained in the competition with Amy Pejkovic for the next couple of rounds and when the bar was raised to 1.79m Sleeman became the new event leader. Pejkovic could not negotiate the height, leaving Sleeman to take gold.

This performance was a vital result for Sleeman as she stayed in contention for one of two selection berths for the World Youth Championships.
 
The men’s discus was a close battle, particularly between eventual gold and silver medallists, Australian’s Liam Speers and Ben Talakai.

Talakai had the form on the board with a dominate performance last December at the Pacific School Games in Canberra where he won by over four metres in a world youth qualifier of 56.96m, however, today he was no match for the resurgent Speers.

Speers took an early lead over Talakai with a throw of 54.22m. Nothing changed until an enormous last round throw by Talakai which looked in the region of 56 metres and would certainly have been a winning throw, until he saw the officials raise a red flag indicating a foul.

Other field gold medallists included Australia’s Brooke Stratton in the women’s long jump (5.79m), China’s Siyu Gu in the women’s discus (48.01m) and Australia’s Tim Pappas (3.90m) in the men’s pole vault.

Further information from the Australian Youth Olympic Festival can be found at www.olympics.com.au

Lloyd Green and David Tarbotton for the AOC

Image courtesy of David Tarbotton